[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 92 (Friday, June 18, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S5152]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO DR. RAYNARD S. KINGTON

 Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to salute Dr. Raynard S. 
Kington and thank him for his outstanding service and leadership at the 
National Institutes of Health over the past decade.
  Dr. Kington has had an exemplary career in public service. In 1997, 
he joined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as Director 
of the Division of Health Examination Statistics and Director of the 
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey within the National 
Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention. He joined the NIH in 2000 as Director of the Office of 
Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. While leading that office, he 
simultaneously served as Acting Director of the National Institute on 
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. In 2003, he was promoted to Principal 
Deputy Director of NIH.
  Dr. Kington is an extraordinarily accomplished scientist, 
administrator and physician. His quiet leadership and wisdom were 
especially evident during his tenure as Acting Director of NIH from 
October 2008 to August 2009. Most notably, he led the agency's effort 
to quickly and judiciously allocate the $10.4 billion that this 
Congress provided to the NIH in the American Recovery and Reinvestment 
Act. In addition, his keen leadership skills were critical to 
successful implementation of President Obama's Executive order on human 
embryonic stem cell research and to establishing the Basic Behavioral 
and Social Science Opportunity Network Initiative. I am also grateful 
to Dr. Kington for leading NIH's efforts to strengthen conflict of 
interest regulations.
  Dr. Kington possesses a remarkable range of experience in higher 
education, research, management, public policy, and rigorous 
intellectual achievement. In 2006, he was elected to the prestigious 
Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, where he 
currently serves as the chair of the Section on Administration of 
Health Services, Education, and Research.
  He has been a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation, and was 
codirector of the Charles R. Drew University/RAND Center on Health and 
Aging. He has served as an assistant professor of medicine at UCLA and 
as a visiting associate professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins 
University School of Medicine.
  Mr. President, at the age of 16, Dr. Kington began his postsecondary 
education at the University of Michigan, where he received his B.S. 
with distinction and his M.D. at the age of 21. He completed his 
residency in internal medicine at Michael Reese Medical Center in 
Chicago. He was appointed a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the 
University of Pennsylvania, where he completed his M.B.A. with 
distinction and his Ph.D. with a concentration in Health Policy and 
Economics at the Wharton School. He is board-certified in internal 
medicine, geriatric medicine, and public health and preventive 
medicine.
  Dr. Kington has a broad range of knowledge and experience in 
scientific, health, economic, and social issues. His research interests 
lie in the relationships among race, socioeconomic position, and health 
status, especially in older populations. He is a leading scientific 
researcher on the role of social factors as determinants of health.
  We all owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Kington for his extraordinary 
public service. The scientific community and the Nation have benefited 
enormously from his skilled leadership.
  Finally, I would point out that NIH's loss is my State's great gain. 
On August 1, he will be inaugurated as the 13th president of Grinnell 
College in Iowa. I join with my Senate colleagues in thanking Dr. 
Kington for his past service and wishing him even greater success in 
his challenging new position in Iowa.

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